Express Fees Drive Cleo Revenue

Cleo is no longer mainly selling budgeting software, it is selling faster access to cash between paychecks. By 2025, express fees reached about $157M, or 62% of revenue, versus $90M from subscriptions. That shifts the center of the business from monthly software fees to repeat liquidity events, where users connect their bank account, qualify for an advance, and pay extra to get money the same day instead of waiting.1 2

• The mix changed fast. In October 2024, subscriptions were still 59% of revenue and fees were 41%. By 2025, fees had overtaken subscriptions, showing that Cleo’s AI chat is working less like a paid coach and more like a funnel into higher frequency advance usage.2 1
• This puts Cleo closer to Dave and Super.com than to Monarch Money or old Mint. Those products win by becoming the app people open when they are short on cash, then cross selling cards, credit building, rewards, and other tools around that urgent money need.1 3 4
• The practical risk and opportunity are the same. Express fees scale faster than subscriptions because a user can pay many times a year, but the business becomes more tied to repayment performance and continued demand from paycheck to paycheck users.5 1

The next stage is building a broader financial hub around the cash advance moment. If Cleo can keep turning emergency liquidity users into repeat users of planning, savings, credit building, and payments, express fees become the wedge that funds a larger consumer finance bundle rather than a single feature.1 3